Working Overtime

Working Overtime By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com September 11, 2006 Rich Rodriguez MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Rich Rodriguez and his coaching staff have the look of college students cramming for a big final examination. Moments after the Eastern Washington victory on Saturday, the coaching staff got right to work on Maryland with the quick five-day turnaround for Thursday night's clash with the Terps to be televised by ESPN. “Usually we have a couple of days to let the last game soak in and in this case you don’t,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve had to get their focus on Maryland right away.” Because both teams had relatively easy times in their first two games, expect both to unleash some surprises on Thursday night. Maryland downed I-AA William & Mary, 27-14 in its season opener and defeated Middle Tennessee State, 24-10 last weekend. “In both games Maryland kind of got out to a comfortable lead and just kind of coasted at the end,” Rodriguez said. “They were never in danger of losing either game.” Rodriguez says timing as much as the opponent also plays a part in what teams reveal early in the season. “You’re not going to see (a team’s entire package) at this time of the year because you’re only going to put in what you can execute,” he said. “It’s been more important for me to have things in there that our players can execute and not beat yourself and make silly mistakes scheme wise. Will we do more against Maryland? I’m sure we will.” Maryland has undergone some changes this year after consecutive 5-6 seasons. Inside linebackers coach Chris Cosh is now coordinating Maryland’s defense and head coach Ralph Friedgen is now calling the plays on offense. “They’ve got a new defensive coordinator and then Ralph has taken over as the offensive coordinator,” Rodriguez said. “Any time you play a team that has two new coordinators whether the head coach has been there or not it’s a little bit different for you in preparation. “There is a little bit of guesswork going on,” Rodriguez said. “There is still a little bit of an unknown because of their first two games and not knowing exactly what they’re going to throw at us.” What concerns Rodriguez most about Maryland is its great size offensively. The Terps start four 300 pounders up front including 6-foot-9-inch, 350-pound right tackle Jared Gaither. Maryland’s starting tight end Joey Hawkins stands 6-8 and weighs 267 pounds. His backup Dan Gronkowski is 6-6, 266. “Our guys know Maryland is always a very physical game. You look at their size, particularly their O-line and their tight ends – we’ve got nobody that looks like that,” Rodriguez said. “Physically they will probably be one of the biggest teams we play all year.” Rodriguez says you counter size by getting good leverage and being physical yourself. “If you play a physical team you better be physical yourself or you’ll get embarrassed,” he said. “I think our guys understand that. We’re not going to do a whole lot of hitting this week in practice because we know there is going to be a whole lot of hitting going on Thursday night.” Rodriguez said Steve Slaton (ankle), Dorrell Jalloh (hip) and Larry Williams (back) did not practice on Monday but addeed that Slaton will be ready for today's practice. “(Steve) could have done some things (Sunday) if we wanted him to but we just wanted to let him rest,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve got to make sure he’s 100 percent on Thursday.” WVU’s two backup freshman corners Guesly Dervil and Franchot Allen earned passing grades against Eastern Washington, according to Rodriguez. “They did OK. Guesly made some nice plays and Boogie Allen did some things so we’ve got a little more confidence in them,” he said. “Vaughn Rovers played pretty well. He’s a veteran guy so we feel pretty good about Vaughn out there.” Rodriguez said last week’s preparation against Eastern Washington included a lot self-scouting and self-evaluating of the offensive, defensive and special teams schemes. “Usually you do that between your first and second game anyway,” he said. “With Eastern Washington we did some prep for them and we did a lot of work on ourselves and in turn that will help us for the Maryland game and other games this year.” Rodriguez is disappointed that his defense has only produced two turnovers and four negative yardage plays in two games against Marshall and Eastern Washington. “We’ve had two turnovers and we haven’t gotten any sacks. We’ve got to put more pressure on the quarterback and get some negative yardage plays and somehow we’ve got to be more aggressive attacking the ball,” Rodriguez said. Rodriguez said his team’s overtime win over Maryland two years ago at Milan Puskar Stadium was an important victory for his young football program. “It was big because we had gotten killed by them for a couple of years in a row,” he said. “It was like a big gorilla on your back. It seemed like we had made some key mistakes at critical times against them and that game we made some critical mistakes but we were still able to win the game. It was probably as important psychologically as anything else because we had struggled so much against them.” Last year’s win at Maryland was also an important triumph for a young team on its way to the Sugar Bowl. “That was a big game for us because we had a young team in the road in a tough environment,” Rodriguez said. “We got the lead on them and they came right back, it was really tight, and our young guys responded real well. It was almost like watching our young guys grow up right in front of us. That was a sign to me that, hey, maybe we’re going to be OK.” Tailback Josh Allen, who had big games against West Virginia in the past before suffering a knee injury in 2005, is listed as third on the Maryland depth chart behind starter Lance Ball and backup Keon Lattimore. Allen has carried just eight times for 26 yards this season. There will be five runners in Thursday night’s game with more than 1,000 career rushing yards. West Virginia has three in Steve Slaton (1,436), Jason Colson (1,134) and Patrick White (1,022), and Maryland two in Josh Allen (1,886) and Lance Ball (1,052). Only twice in the last 12 meetings has the West Virginia-Maryland winner not scored at least 30 points. Both were West Virginia wins in 1996 (13-0) and 2004 (19-16). ESPN’s announcing crew for Thursday night will be Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Erin Andrews. A 4:30 pm game time has been announced for next Saturday’s contest at East Carolina. The game will be televised nationally by ESPN2. On Saturday, Sept. 23, all eight Big East non-conference football games will be televised which Big East Associate Commissioner Tom Odjakjian believes is a first for the conference. On that date West Virginia plays at East Carolina on ESPN2, Cincinnati plays at Virginia Tech on ESPNU, Pittsburgh hosts The Citadel on ESPN360, Connecticut’s game at Indiana will be on ESPN regional, the Miami, Ohio-Syracuse game will air on ESPNU and the Howard-Rutgers game will be televised by ESPN regional. Television is also expected for the Louisville-Kansas State and South Florida-Kansas games.